It was a perfect lift-off.   They all had just barely made it back in time for the jets to propel the entire house up. Hopefully the neighbors were too wrapped up in their perfect little bubbles to even notice or fully grasp what had happened just next door. He had hoped the day would never come but knew deep down that it would and that he would have his family prepared. His family would be breaking free from the Earth’s atmosphere for the first time, but for him it was nothing new. As their picture perfect Maple street soon turned into something so small and insignificant. A silence of wonder and fear fell on the house as they continued to travel higher and higher. What was next? What would happen to everyone still left on the only planet that humanity had ever known? Was it now up to them and them alone to continue on to new worlds?

     Even as they broke out into the zero-gravity void, the weight of the responsibility of their decision settled on all of their shoulders. Regardless of how far they ventured and what events would unfold they knew that together, as a family, they would endure. He broke the silence and said, “Everyone okay?” After  a lethargic yes from each member, he began to inspect everything in the house to ensure it was safe for the long, laborious journey ahead. For what was in the house would be all they had as they travelled to destinations not yet known to anyone in the house. But They knew. Those who had told him to prepare and gave him the technology and the plans to do so. They knew something was coming and chose him to escape. Why? What differentiates him from the others?

     Earth, which was now a small spec on the horizon of the solar system, looked so innocent from so far away. But it was infected, with too many ills to cure. But this was no time for the past. They could not afford to look back and wonder what could have been; instead, they must look to the future and what will be. Their house, that vessel of the future of their species travelled onward and outward. The family sat together in the living room as they awaited a message from them. Time passed and nothing, then suddenly a blinding flash of light slowly consumed the house. They had arrived to take them beyond.